A Time and a Place - Mark 2:18-22
Notes
Transcript
If you would open your Bibles to Mark chapter 2.
We all instinctively know that there is a time and a place for certain activities, right? No one goes to the baseball game and files their taxes at the ballpark.
No one shows up to work wearing a costume, except maybe on Halloween, depending on what the workplace is. But even that that exception proves the rule. A time and a place.
But you know who doesn’t always understand the time and place dynamics. Little children. As parents we get to experience our children doing things at some of the most inopportune times because they have not yet learned that that time is not the time or place. And so as parents we get to lovingly teach them “hey, this isn’t the time or place for that”
The Preacher of Ecclesiastes tapped into this time and place dynamic in Ecc 3.
1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
2 a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
3 a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
Jumping up and down and cheering a hole in one looks odd when the hole is in your tire from that nail you just ran over.
There is a time for celebration. There is a time for mourning.
What the preacher challenges us to do is to consider how God has made the world, and how we all instinctively know that there is a time and place for a variety of seemingly opposite activities, and when we do the appropriate action at the right time, it is good, for he goes on to say in verse eleven
Ecclesiastes 3:11 (ESV)
11 He has made everything beautiful in its time.
In our text today Jesus is going to be asked a question, and and in many ways his reply can be boiled down to this: Time and a place.
In this text we find this truth: The arrival of the Messiah changes everything!
What does his arrival change?
The arrival of the Messiah brings rejoicing
Because the arrival of the Messiah brings newness.
Let’s read verses 18-22
18 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”
The narrator provides some background information. This is what John the baptist’s disciples and those who were following the Pharisees were doing. But some noticed that Jesus was not fasting and this raises the question.
It’s interesting. In the previous section the Pharisees are concerned that Jesus is eating with tax collectors and sinner.
Here the people are concerning that he is eating.
Why?
Why did these individuals care about fasting? What is fasting, and why does it matter?
Fasting is, of course, abstaining from food for usually a pre-determined period of time. We only see one fast prescribed in the OT law, and then Esther institutes a fast with the observance of Purim, but that’s all of the commands. We do, however, see people fasting in various places in the OT.
We find fasting in a time of mourning.
We fasting in a time of distress
We find fasting in a time of earnest pleading with God for some request.
In each case, it speaks of sorrow and hardship.
By the time the Pharisees came around, they had developed an entire system around fasting, and they fasted every tuesday and thursday. This is just what pious people do. We fast and mourn the roman occupation. We fast and mourn that there are still sinners in the land.
This was such a big deal to them that early Christians wrote in a document called the dideche that Christians should fast on Wed and Fri, not like the hypocrites who fast on tues/thurs.
So, in my minds eye, I’m imagining Jesus calling Levi, going to hang out at his house will all his friends, which the Pharisees just abhor, and he’s feasting with forgiven sinners…on a Thursday!
So now this question comes. What gives? They are fasting, why aren’t you?
Sometimes you can ask a question and its because you legitimately don’t know the answer. I get a lot of those from my children. “Why are cloud white?” “What does such and such mean?”
Sometime we ask questions and its not really a question its more of an accusation. I ask my children a lot of those.
“Why isn’t your room clean?”
Implied in the question is the expectation that they should have cleaned their room!
It seems to me that this question carries that accusatory tone. They are fasting and you aren’t. Why are you being so worldly?
Why aren’t you as godly as those other people?
But look at how Jesus responds:
19 And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.
20 The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.
This is a pretty interesting response by Jesus. He makes an analogy between himself and a wedding party.
Fasting is done in a time of sorrow, hardship, or mourning. Well, no one goes to a wedding party and mourns. That doesn’t make sense. There is a time for fasting and mourning, and there is a time for dancing and rejoicing. And a wedding, that’s a time to celebrate!
The Jewish wedding was a very big deal, and was very extravagant. They threw a party! If you showed up in funeral clothes and wanted to make the party a funeral march, that would be very rude and just doesn’t make sense in the context.
And that’s the point. Jesus is drawing this analogy and he is the bridegroom. Those who are hearing, believing, and following Christ are the wedding guests.
Jesus is saying that it doesn’t make sense to mourn the arrival of the Messiah. The Christ had arrived! He was right there in front of them, that should be a time of celebration and joy!
So we see, that the arrival of the Messiah Brings Rejoicing!
Messiah’s Arrival Brings Rejoicing
Messiah’s Arrival Brings Rejoicing
It’s not time to fast, but rather to feast! Messiah has come!
Think about the porgression of this chapter for a moment. A man is brought to Jesus lowered through the rafter and Jesus forgives his sins, and then heals him to prove the forgiveness was real. Sinners are being forgiven! Praise God! Rejoice!
The next section which we saw last week. Jesus calls a tax collector and feasts with them and other sinners to boot! When questioned about it he says, hey.
This is why I’m here. There are sinners and they need a savior, and now the savior has come!
Instead of being all crotchety about who I’m hanging out with, you should be rejoicing that sinners are being turned into saints!
Sinners are being saved!
Even the Tax collectors. Even me.
This is what we need to realize. We are the sinners. He came for us. Why should I be invited to the wedding? I shouldn’t be. I’m poor wretched, blind, and naked. I have nothing to offer Christ.
But I’m there. He has welcomed me in. What further cause for rejoicing is that? Fast? no, we feast!
I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about our potlucks in that way. We call them our First Sunday Family Feasts. Why should we feast? Why should we enjoy such meals together?
Because we are sinners forgiven by God’s good grace. We are now joint heirs together with Christ, you and me. It is good to rejoice!
It only makes sense to rejoice when we consider that the messiah has come.
Now, I don’t believe that Jesus is forbidding fasting here. Remember, a time and a place. There is a time when fasting is appropriate, which he says in verse 20.
Some day the bridegroom will be taken away. And then they will fast.
This is the first time Jesus publically says anything about his eventual departure. It would be a day of grief for his disciples, and even as we are here on this earth and await his second coming, I think there are times when it is appropriate to fast and pray.
But time and a place.
Here in this text, Jesus is there. So it doesn’t make sense to fast in that moment. The arrival of the Messiah brings rejoicing.
Not only that, but his ministry brings something new:
Christ’s Arrival Brings Newness
Christ’s Arrival Brings Newness
21 No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. 22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.”
Now here we find a sudden shift. Jesus takes the conversation in an unexpected direction.
After talking about fasting, he talks about sewing a new patch on old clothes, and putting new wine into old wineskins.
Now I must confess. This was difficult for me to understand at first because I kept asking myself “what does this have to do with fasting?”
And the answer is it doesn’t. I was asking the wrong question. The question should not be “what does this have to do with fasting” but rather “what is Jesus teaching us about his ministry?”
Jesus answered the question about fasting, but he did so by teaching about the nature of his ministry. His ministry is one of joy and we see that in the wake of forgiven sins.
But he also takes the opportunity to press in on another aspect of his ministry: he makes things new.
First, he talks about the clothes. If you have a hole in some old clothes, if you were to patch it with a piece on unshrunk cloth, when you wash it that patch will shrink and will make the tear worse in the clothes. So it is common sense not to put a new patch on old clothes.
Likewise no one puts new wine into old wine skins. Why not? In those days, wine was stored in specially made sacks made from animal hide called wineskins. As the grape juice fermented the wineskins would expand. If you tried to reuse the skins, they would continue to expand with the new wine and would eventually burst, spoiling the batch. So new patches only go on new clothes, and new wine only goes into new wineskins.
So what’s the point?
Jesus is saying that the old and the new don’t mix.
We can think about Jesus’s three analogies as three things that don’t make sense: mourning at a wedding, new cloth on old clothes, and new win in old wineskins.
But the point with the second two examples seems to add a new layer to our understanding of Jesus’ ministry.
See, Jesus has been calling the people to a new way of life. The Scribes and Pharisees and religious leaders of the day wanted to keep things as they were, they wanted to keep people bound under the Law. They wanted to continue to teach that the way to God was through their religious system.
Some people were trapped in that system playing the game and hoping it God would see.
Others would say, yeah, not for me. I’m going to sin it up and enjoy myself in the process. I’ll be a tax collector, or prostitute, or engage is some other disreputable activity.
But here Jesus comes along preaching repentance and faith and a life of being a disciple, a follower of Jesus Christ. He came offering forgiveness for sins, not to the self-righteous, but to the scum of the earth sinners.
Jesus is saying here, that the old ways of life under the Law and under the Scribes and Pharisees, and the old ways of life as a tax collector, these old ways do not mix with the new way of Jesus.
Discipleship requires a new framework. We don’t get to come to Jesus on our terms. Jesus offers life and forgiveness and will be merciful and compassionate, but there is no place for us to say “you know what, I’m going to keep my way of life and just tack on Jesus here” it does not work that way.
It won’t work. Your wineskins will break. Your clothes will tear. You must be willing to make a shift in your entire way of thinking.
This is why Jesus has been preaching a message of repentance to the people. Repentance means that I was walking according to my own way and now I’m changing my mind to walk according to God’s way. It’s a complete change of direction. It’s a complete change in mindset.
Many people treat church like the Scribes and Pharisees treated their religious system during Jesus’ time. We can so easily attend church, sing the songs, and even give money to the church, or get baptized thinking that we have earned some kind of favor with God, as if we can just put a checkmark in that box and everything will be okay. We look around at everyone else who isn’t doing those things with our noses turned up so far that if it rained we’d drown.
What we need to understand is that we cannot earn brownie points with God. And even if you don’t have those thoughts consciously in your head, whether you realize it or not, the temptation to begin to view church that is always there. If you have a constant judgmental attitude to towards those who aren’t living according to your moral code, or if you come to church and the whole process is habitual and you don’t even think about what is going on here, you just go through everything, you are at serious risk of being in the same shoes as the Pharisees. And I include myself within that warning because I am susceptible to that as well.
Then there are those on the opposite side of the spectrum. There are people who want to live their lives their way, they want to live in sin and not follow the commands of Jesus, but they want the perks. They want the forgiveness, the eternal life, but they have no desire to actually follow and obey the one who makes those things possible.
But Jesus is saying that it doesn’t work that way! Jesus is telling us that to follow Jesus means we chuck the old mindset. Levi the tax collector cannot wallow in greed and continue to abuse his powers and take advantage of people and follow Jesus! The old way of life and the new way don’t mix. The Pharisees and Scribes can’t cling to their old legalistic way of life thinking they are superior to everyone else simply because they keep their version of their own moral code and also follow Jesus. The old and the new don’t mix.
Likewise cannot allow ourselves to think that just because we sit in church on a Sunday morning, put money in the box in the back, and live according to a certain moral code that we are better than anyone else, or that we are earning credit with God. This attitude does not mix with truly following Jesus.
We cannot allow ourselves to think that we can live our lives anyway we want, including living in sin, just tack on Jesus and you’ll be okay. The old way of life and the new way do not mix.
The question that I have is this: Why in the world would we want to live according to our old way to begin with? That old way was the way of death! If we are coming to Jesus we are coming for a reason! The old ways don’t work! the old ways are death.
But with the arrival of the Messiah, praise God! we rejoice at the forgiveness he offers!
With the arrival of the Messiah, praise God! we have the new way of living that he will teach us to live as we learn to follow him.
This way of Jesus is not easier. It’s not safer. But it is better. It’s the way of life. Its the way of joy!
Christ offers forgiveness to the unforgivable. That’s you. That’s me. Praise Him for forgiveness!
But recognize that discipleship requires a new framework for life. The old and the new don’t mix.
If you try to mix them, it might seem okay for a while, but your cloth will tear eventually. Your wineskin will burst. And you’ll be sitting wondering what went wrong.
So seek the savior. If there are old ways you are clinging to, ask his help to let it go. Seek out counsel to put the old ways to death. Study the Scriptures for in them there is life!
I close with this well known passage
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;